App encourages positivity on campus

Next time something pops into your head — a compliment, feeling or observation — consider sharing it on Notice.

Founded by Wharton senior Edward Lando and Engineering freshman Yagil Burowski, Notice is a social networking app geared toward promoting positivity on campus. It allows students to anonymously post compliments, shout-outs or random thoughts.

Notice is different from other popular anonymous sites like CollegiateACB because it focuses on positivity, Lando said. The app ensures that every post is positive by reviewing submissions before they are published. App users can also take down any post in which they are tagged.

The idea for Notice was inspired by a discussion between Lando and Burowski on mental health issues at Penn.

“There are many people who are secretly stressed and need someone to speak to — we were feeling the stress as well,” Burowski said.

“Penn Admirers and Penn Compliments show a very interesting trend in ways to respond to a campus problem, which we learned from, ” Lando said. “We are trying to universalize these experiences and make this type of communication deeper.”

Lando added that Notice has uses that other sites and apps do not provide — for example, users do not have to tag someone or post about a specific person.

Notice gives users a voice to say anything.

“We were having lunch one day and started looking at the people around us. What if I could say something about the person over there? What if I could flirt with that girl?” Lando said.

According to the founders, this spontaneity differentiates Notice from other forums.

“It has to be spontaneous — something that you notice , ” Burowski said. “For example, there was a post recently that said, ‘Who are those people at Smoke’s?’ It needs to be immediate.”

The founders hope that the anonymity of Notice will allow people to not be self-conscious when they use it.

“On Facebook, there is a super-awareness that everyone is judging you and it makes Facebook a self-branding thing,” Lando said.

Another component to the app is the community.

“Notice is like a masquerade ball in your town. You know who is present at the party, but at any given time, you’re only able to make a few guesses about who it is,” Burowski said. “The person is comfortable enough to dance like no one is watching,” Lando added.

Notice currently limits its users to the Penn community by requiring a Penn email address to register. Lando said they wanted all the users to have something in common, because “you only care about the people you care about.”

Notice has already made a mark on the Penn community. The app already has over 500 downloads since its launch on March 31, and 80 percent of users access it at least once a day.

The founders attribute Notice’s early popularity with the service that it delivers along with the design of the app. They wanted the continuously scrolling feed of posts to seem like a “natural way to experience the content,” Burowski added.

“It’s a comprehensive experience,” Burowski said. “If you create a happy and beautiful product, people are not going to hate on it.”

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